October 17, 2011

Early Kazumoto Endo: Listening to "Evergreen"

The album art for Kazumoto Endo's Evergreen so starkly contrasts the actual sonic contents of the green 7" that a previous listener scribbled on the copy I listened to, "NOT the instrument used to make this record" with an arrow aggressively drawn in the direction of the acoustic guitar.

For anyone familiar with Kazumoto Endo's work, this wouldn't exactly be a surprise. Kazumoto Endo has been a noise innovator since he began his solo Killer Bug project in the mid 1990s, bringing particularly dense, highly textured static collages into the noise scene. Evergreen is a prime example of Endo doing exactly what he does best.

The droning static makes way for increasingly shrill arcs of "pure" sound. The track is perfectly paced, without the onslaught of over-aggression that often characterizes the work of Endo's contemporaries. Endo inundates his listener with wave upon wave of sound, with careful attention paid not only to the density and "feel" of each component, but also an intense attention to the interlocking of rhythms.

Side B's track, "Beagle-ken To No Seikatsu," has a haunting, underlying phrase, at times hidden underneath what sounds like the scraping together of metal scraps, and at others emerges as the primary sound source. The track beautifully devolves at exactly the halfway point into a harsh noise bit, only to itself breakdown in a pulsating onslaught of static.

Every moment is perfectly controlled; even at the heaviest and most complex moments on the 7", Endo is in absolute control -- you never forget that these are two Kazumoto Endo tracks. Evergreen was released in a limited batch of 300 copies on now defunct label Pinch A Loaf Productions. Both tracks that make up the release are incredibly precise, cathartic explorations in form and texture that really make Evergreen a stunning display of Kazumoto Endo's craftwork.